By Julia Fritz-Endres, MN350

On a bright summer morning in downtown St. Paul, there was a sense of hope in the air. The day was June 29, the fourth and final day the Public Utilities Commission would discuss the Line 3 pipeline replacement project before making their decision. They held the power to grant or deny a Certificate of a Need and Route Permit for the project.

I was newly interning with MN350, an environmental non-profit focused on fighting climate change. I had joined the “Pipeline Resistance” arm of MN350 just a few days before and was just beginning to understand the breadth of the resistance movement. For over five years, environmental advocacy groups, indigenous leaders, religious groups, and countless others have opposed the pipeline through every legal avenue available to them, building a vast network of fighters.